Trumps travel ban is not an effective way of controlling the virus but its a typical political statement. Also banning sporting fixtures isn't either

Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said cancelling sporting events is not a "major way to tackle this epidemic".

"Of course there is a risk," he said. "But on average one person infects two or three others.

"You therefore have a very low probability of infecting a large number of people in a stadium, or a rather higher probability of infecting people very close to you, and that means most of the transmission tends to takes place with friends and colleagues in close environments, not in the big environments.

"It is true that any cancellations of things can have some effect (but) if you then get a displacement activity, when everyone congregates somewhere else, you may have perversely an increased risk, particularly in an indoors environment.

"So it doesn't mean you should at some point make the decision for the resilience point that has been discussed, but this is not a major way to tackle this epidemic.

"The major ways are to try and reduce and delay the transmission across households and people who have become infected and that why that is the concentration of the first actions."

But of course it "looks" as if major action is being taken, when the real facts are that the virus will spread anyway, most will suffer minor if any effects.


Meanwhile on average a round 17,000 die from flu each year (though it was under 2,000 in 18/19 and nearly 5 people die in road accidents each day (approx 1800 a year) but we dont report that on the news every night.